A conventional fishing reel provided with a clutch operating device constructed as described above is well-known and is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Gazette No. Sho 60-94,048. The clutch operating device is provided with a clutch lever, a torsion spring for selectively biasing the clutch lever toward its forward movement position or its backward movement position, a return spring which has a restoring force larger than the biasing force of the torsion spring for biasing the clutch lever toward its forward movement position and biases the clutch lever to the backward movement position thereof, and a change-over control mechanism for changing over the return spring to the condition of applying the restoring force thereof to the clutch lever and the condition of releasing the clutch lever.
In such reels, when an angler casts a fishing line during fishing, he operates an operating member to change over the return spring from its acting condition to its release condition, thereby forwardly moving the clutch lever against the torsion spring to disengage the clutch means, and the angler rotates a handle to return the clutch lever, thereby engaging the same. When the clutch lever is operated little by little to draw out the line or stop it for "flipping fishing", the operating member is operated to change over the return spring from the release condition to the acting condition and vice versa, whereby the clutch lever forwardly moves against the return spring to disengage the clutch means and is restored by the return spring to engage the same.
For flipping fishing using the conventional clutch operating device, the clutch lever forwardly moves to deflect the return spring having a restoring force larger than the biasing force of the torsion spring for the clutch lever at its forward movement position, whereby it is not easy to operate the clutch lever little by little because of heavy handling thereof and also an angler is apt to become tired due to finger operation of the clutch lever.